Smart News Ideas & Innovations

David Fairchild in 1940, tasting the fruit of an antidesma tree in Indonesia.

This Swashbuckling Botanist Changed America’s Landscapes

Not always for the better

The interesting thing is that it doesn't sound like people minded much.

Once Upon a Time, Exploding Billiard Balls Were An Everyday Thing

It was a side effect of no longer making them from ivory

Kaboom.

Your Alaskan Cruise Is Possible Because Canada Blew Up an Underwater Mountain

People predicted tsunamis and an earthquake, but nothing particularly bad happened

SpaceX launches it's first re-used Falcon 9 rocket

Cool Finds

Watch SpaceX's Recycled Rocket Stick Its Landing

The reused Falcon 9 booster rocket may usher in an era of cheaper and more frequent trips into space

Cool Finds

Now Everyone Can Track Yosemite’s Bears Online

The park is displaying delayed GPS data on a new website to stop curious humans from scouting out the creatures in real time

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault. A new vault will protect the world's books, archives and documents on long-lasting film

Cool Finds

A Second Doomsday Vault—This One to to Preserve Data—Is Opening in Svalbard

Known as the Arctic World Archive, it will store copies of books, archives and documents on special film

Your vending machine is judging you.

New Research

Brief Vending Machine Delay Helps People Make Better Snack Choices

When a vending machine withheld junky snacks for 25 seconds, people were slightly more likely to choose a healthier option

Velcro was originally available only in black, but even when it started coming in multiple colors, 1960s fashionistas wanted nothing to do with it.

Before Velcro’s Patent Expired, It Was a Niche Product Most People Hadn’t Heard Of

The hook-and-loop tape's moment in the sun came after others were free to copy it

None

Trending Today

There’s a New World’s Blackest Black

And it’s really black

Cool Finds

Nanocars Will Race Across (a Very, Very Tiny Bit of) France

Ladies and gentlemen, start your molecules

Was sticking an eraser on the back of a pencil common sense, or a new invention?

Happy Birthday to the Modern Pencil

The patent for this supremely convenient invention didn't last long

A vintage ad for Coca Cola from around the late 19th or early 20th century.

Coca-Cola’s Creator Said the Drink Would Make You Smarter

Like the wine and cocaine drink that preceded it, Coca-Cola was first marketed as a brain tonic

Trending Today

Norway Proposes World's First Mile-Long Tunnel for Ships

The tunnel would help ships and ferries avoid rough seas around the Stadlandet Peninsula where 33 people have died since World War II

Corbin Fleming plays with President Obama's desk phone in 2012.

Before 1929, Nobody Thought the President Needed a Telephone in his Office

Herbert Hoover got a phone in the Oval Office over fifty years after the White House first got a switchboard

A woman marks a bombardier enclosure for a B-24 Liberator bomber at the Ford Willow Run plant.

How Detroit Went from Motor City to the Arsenal of Democracy

Detroit already had car manufacturing capability: that turned into war production capability in the early 1940s

Ovarian cells did their thing in a dish for researchers who used microfluidics and chips to recreate a female menstrual cycle.

New Research

Your Monthly Menstrual Cycle, Reenacted on a Microchip

Bodies are complicated, but they’re no match for persistent bioengineers

In the eyes of Joseph Guillotin, the guillotine was an invention in the best ideals of the Revolution: humane, equalizing and scientific.

The Guillotine's Namesake Was Against Capital Punishment

And contrary to popular myth, he died of natural causes, not by beheading

Though the single-run of Full Circle beer is long gone, the message about the importance of water conservation still stands.

San Diego Breweries Experiment With Recycled Water

Stone and Ballast Point Breweries both created beers made from highly purified waste water

New Research

Researchers Turn Spinach Leaves Into Beating Heart Tissues

These living leaves could eventually become patches for the human heart

Researchers discovered the effect in hamsters while trying to find a cure for jet lag in people.

Another Use for Viagra: Curing Hamster Jet Lag

It works—but only for hamsters (and maybe people) traveling east

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